{"id":2122886,"date":"2026-09-01T15:56:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T12:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2122886"},"modified":"2026-09-01T15:56:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T12:56:34","slug":"cd-projekt-red-never-considered-charging-for-the-witcher-3-remaster-and-says-expansion-songs-of-the-past-came-from-a-couple-of-happy-accidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2122886","title":{"rendered":"CD Projekt Red never considered charging for The Witcher 3 remaster, and says expansion Songs of the Past came from a couple of &#8220;happy accidents&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">CD Projekt Red never considered charging for The Witcher 3 remaster, and says expansion Songs of the Past came from a couple of &#8220;happy accidents&#8221;<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">&#8220;Let&#8217;s try and give Geralt one more ride.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/geralt-lilla-songs-of-the-past-witcher-3.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"A white-haired male warrior with a scar over his eye turns towards a woman with a ruffed colour. They are both lit by lantern light.\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"geralt-lilla-songs-of-the-past-witcher-3.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>CD Projekt Red<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/robert-purchese\">Robert Purchese<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Associate Editor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\n<p>Published on   <time datetime=\"2026-09-01T15:56:34+00:00\" data-auto-time-zone=\"true\" data-year=\"numeric\" data-month=\"short\" data-day=\"numeric\" data-hour=\"numeric\" data-minute=\"numeric\">Sept. 1, 2026, 3:56 p.m.<\/time>\n              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/witcher-3-remaster-songs-of-past-expansion?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          8 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"5602a568-15bf-416c-8edc-63042b171df5\" data-name=\"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt\" data-follow-text=\"Follow The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt\" title=\"Follow The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt\"><br \/>\n  Follow The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>Polish developer CD Projekt Red apparently never considered charging players for the recently revealed Remastered edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt\">The Witcher 3<\/a>, and it has explained more about how the expansion Songs of the Past came to be, citing a couple of &#8220;happy accidents&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/witcher-3-expansion-songs-of-the-past-trailer\">The Remastered edition of The Witcher 3, revealed at Gamescom last week<\/a>, significantly overhauls the now 11-year-old role-playing game, not only visually, but also from a gameplay point of view, addressing its much-maligned combat but also enemy behaviour, horse riding, skill trees, and more. Yet despite all of the apparent work that&#8217;s gone into it, it&#8217;s going to be a free upgrade for everyone who owns the game.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>There are a lot of changes in the Remastered edition of The Witcher 3.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7hBLcFaCbLU\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Charging for it? &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it was ever a thought we even had,&#8221; CD Projekt Red joint-CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegamebusiness.com\/p\/cd-projekt-red-if-you-want-a-cost\">Micha\u0142 Nowakowski told The Game Business<\/a>. &#8220;It was never a question we asked ourselves.&#8221; Instead, CD Projekt Red thought about it as an improvement and a way to introduce the expansion Songs of the Past.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I remember we were going deeper and deeper into the development of Songs of the Past with Fool&#8217;s Theory and we started chatting, like, &#8216;Why don&#8217;t we make the game more modern? Everything feels like it was developed 10 years ago.&#8217; And that was really the beginning of the conversation. And we started chatting, like, &#8216;What could we do to improve it?&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It started with small things, like okay maybe let&#8217;s fix this, maybe let&#8217;s fix that, and then it turned into this larger project and we suddenly realised we actually have a remaster on our hands.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Songs of the Past being a paid expansion represents the &#8220;commercial bit&#8221;, Nowakowski said. But not charging for the remaster: &#8220;We really felt this is the CDPR way, to gift it to the players who already own it.&#8221; CD Projekt Red also announced it would be including the game&#8217;s two expansions &#8211; Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine &#8211; with purchases of the game from now on. Perhaps this is why it also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/the-witcher-3-price-quietly-increased-ahead-of-remaster-release\">bumped The Witcher 3 price tag<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered - Official Songs of the Past Gameplay Showcase | gamescom 2026\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pVds9vEzZmE?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/pVds9vEzZmE\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered &#8211; Official Songs of the Past Gameplay Showcase | gamescom 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>The Witcher 3 expansion Songs of the Past being demonstrated at Gamescom.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pVds9vEzZmE\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Dom already heard at Gamescom that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/witcher-3-songs-of-the-past-story-written-years-ago-interview\">the idea for the Songs of the Past expansion was one CD Projekt had &#8220;years ago&#8221;<\/a>. Nowakowski expanded on this during The Game Business interview, revealing the company never intended to go back to the game. &#8220;Seriously, for a long time, no,&#8221; Nowakowski said. &#8220;We felt that The Witcher 3 is a closed book and we&#8217;re never ever coming back to it. But a couple of happy accidents happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>One of those was the company collaborating with Fool&#8217;s Theory, a Polish developer made up of many former CD Projekt Red employees. &#8220;They were supposed to work on The Witcher 1,&#8221; he said, referring to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/witcher-1-remake-will-be-open-world-modern-reimagining\">The Witcher 1 remake that was announced in 2022<\/a>. However, this remake has since disappeared from view. &#8220;We realised that needed a little bit more time because of certain technology dependencies with Witcher 4,&#8221; Nowakowski clarified. The Witcher 1 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/the-witcher-4\">The Witcher 4<\/a> both run on Unreal Engine 5, and are the company&#8217;s first games to do so.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We actually had the idea for the third expansion a long time ago, but it was in the drawer, and that led us to the answer, which was, &#8216;Yes, let&#8217;s give it a shot.&#8217; It sounds maybe crazy, but let&#8217;s try and give Geralt one more ride. That&#8217;s where we are right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Witcher 3 Remastered edition releases 29th September and includes a long-awaited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/platforms\/switch-2\">Switch 2<\/a> release as well. Songs of the Past, meanwhile, releases at some point next year, followed by The Witcher 4 in 2028. It&#8217;s a busy few years ahead.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>Polish developer CD Projekt Red apparently never considered charging players for the recently revealed Remastered edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt\">The Witcher 3<\/a>, and it has explained more about how the expansion Songs of the Past came to be, citing a couple of &#8220;happy accidents&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/witcher-3-expansion-songs-of-the-past-trailer\">The Remastered edition of The Witcher 3, revealed at Gamescom last week<\/a>, significantly overhauls the now 11-year-old role-playing game, not only visually, but also from a gameplay point of view, addressing its much-maligned combat but also enemy behaviour, horse riding, skill trees, and more. Yet despite all of the apparent work that&#8217;s gone into it, it&#8217;s going to be a free upgrade for everyone who owns the game.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>There are a lot of changes in the Remastered edition of The Witcher 3.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7hBLcFaCbLU\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Charging for it? &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it was ever a thought we even had,&#8221; CD Projekt Red joint-CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegamebusiness.com\/p\/cd-projekt-red-if-you-want-a-cost\">Micha\u0142 Nowakowski told The Game Business<\/a>. &#8220;It was never a question we asked ourselves.&#8221; Instead, CD Projekt Red thought about it as an improvement and a way to introduce the expansion Songs of the Past.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I remember we were going deeper and deeper into the development of Songs of the Past with Fool&#8217;s Theory and we started chatting, like, &#8216;Why don&#8217;t we make the game more modern? Everything feels like it was developed 10 years ago.&#8217; And that was really the beginning of the conversation. And we started chatting, like, &#8216;What could we do to improve it?&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It started with small things, like okay maybe let&#8217;s fix this, maybe let&#8217;s fix that, and then it turned into this larger project and we suddenly realised we actually have a remaster on our hands.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Songs of the Past being a paid expansion represents the &#8220;commercial bit&#8221;, Nowakowski said. But not charging for the remaster: &#8220;We really felt this is the CDPR way, to gift it to the players who already own it.&#8221; CD Projekt Red also announced it would be including the game&#8217;s two expansions &#8211; Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine &#8211; with purchases of the game from now on. Perhaps this is why it also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/the-witcher-3-price-quietly-increased-ahead-of-remaster-release\">bumped The Witcher 3 price tag<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered - Official Songs of the Past Gameplay Showcase | gamescom 2026\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pVds9vEzZmE?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/pVds9vEzZmE\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered &#8211; Official Songs of the Past Gameplay Showcase | gamescom 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>The Witcher 3 expansion Songs of the Past being demonstrated at Gamescom.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pVds9vEzZmE\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Dom already heard at Gamescom that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/witcher-3-songs-of-the-past-story-written-years-ago-interview\">the idea for the Songs of the Past expansion was one CD Projekt had &#8220;years ago&#8221;<\/a>. Nowakowski expanded on this during The Game Business interview, revealing the company never intended to go back to the game. &#8220;Seriously, for a long time, no,&#8221; Nowakowski said. &#8220;We felt that The Witcher 3 is a closed book and we&#8217;re never ever coming back to it. But a couple of happy accidents happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>One of those was the company collaborating with Fool&#8217;s Theory, a Polish developer made up of many former CD Projekt Red employees. &#8220;They were supposed to work on The Witcher 1,&#8221; he said, referring to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/witcher-1-remake-will-be-open-world-modern-reimagining\">The Witcher 1 remake that was announced in 2022<\/a>. However, this remake has since disappeared from view. &#8220;We realised that needed a little bit more time because of certain technology dependencies with Witcher 4,&#8221; Nowakowski clarified. The Witcher 1 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/the-witcher-4\">The Witcher 4<\/a> both run on Unreal Engine 5, and are the company&#8217;s first games to do so.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We actually had the idea for the third expansion a long time ago, but it was in the drawer, and that led us to the answer, which was, &#8216;Yes, let&#8217;s give it a shot.&#8217; It sounds maybe crazy, but let&#8217;s try and give Geralt one more ride. That&#8217;s where we are right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Witcher 3 Remastered edition releases 29th September and includes a long-awaited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/platforms\/switch-2\">Switch 2<\/a> release as well. Songs of the Past, meanwhile, releases at some point next year, followed by The Witcher 4 in 2028. It&#8217;s a busy few years ahead.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News CD Projekt Red never considered charging for The Witcher 3 remaster, and says expansion Songs of the Past came from a couple of &#8220;happy accidents&#8221; &#8220;Let&#8217;s try and give Geralt one more ride.&#8221; Image credit: CD Projekt Red News by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Published on Sept. 1, 2026, 3:56 p.m. 8 comments [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-2122886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2122886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2122886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2122886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2122886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}